God, this one is rough. It still has decent bones for being Fire Emblem, and mostly pulls from the same mechanics as Shadow Dragon, an entry in the series that I quite like, but this game has a few glaring problems:

- There is a lot of bloat in this game. The roster is even larger than Shadow Dragon's, but so many units join so late that they're extremely difficult to use, yet deployment is reduced in this game compared to its predecessor. There are also so many new items in this game, with a lot of them locked to the time based How's Everyone mode.
- Several maps which range from bad to terrible. The Anri's way arc is miserable, with a special shoutout to the map which is made up nearly entirely of desert tiles. The few chapters in a row where you run from Astram and co. are also pretty bad. Even some early chapters are weirdly difficult (dracoknights in chapter two).
- The narrative centering itself around My Unit really swerves it in a direction I don't really personally enjoy. I know the SNES game this game is based on wasn't known for a huge spectacle of a plot, but Kris basically took over Jagen's role and stole most of his good content.

It's not all awful. The mixed male reclass system is pretty good (unfortunately at the expense of female units, but they got some expanded classes too at least here). Including the BSFE maps and three bonus maps is neat. I largely felt frustrated when playing this game though, I have to say. It's still Fire Emblem though, so I'll probably come back to it again some day.

Reviewed on Jun 02, 2023


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